Death's Cruel Sting

Response to “The Death of the Moth”

                Moths are very small. They are seemingly in no way significant but this author found some significance. This author, Virginia Wolf, found a narrative in death. She was watching a moth flutter around between window panes one day and noticed how full of life it was. To the author’s credit, many people do not take the time to watch such little things with such rapt attention. But nonetheless Wolf was able to see that the moth had little to do with its life but buzz from one side of its window to another. When it fell she wanted to right it with her pencil but stopped seeing that it was near death. The author seems to want us as readers to infer that death is inevitable. If it was not she would have righted the moth so that it could properly fight death. However she hesitated knowing that the little moth did not have the power to conquer death.

                I am not sure whether the author means to say that humans also cannot fight death. For everyone knows that death is unavoidable. Perhaps the author means that there comes a point when we cannot fight death any longer. There comes a time when we are like the little moth; a time when death will not release us from its grasp. Like the moth we were once so full of life but then are not.